


Left Behind

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Near Miss AU [4]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:47:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: The thing about missing someone is that there are always little traces they've left behind in your life, no matter how long it's been since you saw them last.
Relationships: david jacobs & buttons
Series: Near Miss AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735408
Comments: 24
Kudos: 45





	Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a real explanation for this, besides the fact that I got really worked up over the idea of missing people after writing a year away.

David really doesn’t think about New York all that often. He _can’t_ , he can’t let himself, because he is barely holding it together most days as it is. He has too much to manage between work and raising a kid by himself to let himself think about everything he left behind.

Still, sometimes he can’t avoid it.

“Where the _heck_ did you get that shirt?” Les asks one morning, a few weeks after moving in with David and Leah. “Dave! You went to Niles North! Why do you have that?”

David looks down at the sleep shirt he’s wearing.

It’s –

Not his.

It’s got a logo for a north suburbs high school on it, not – as Les so helpfully pointed out – the one David attended. Oddly enough, it’s the one Sean and Tony went to, but the shirt doesn’t belong to either of them.

He’d grabbed it without thinking. It’s been in his pajama drawer for ages, having found its way into the wrong suitcase one semester and never found its way back to its owner.

Because it’s Benny’s, of course it’s Benny’s.

Remembering that, and seeing the logo of Benny’s high school staring up at him from his chest, suddenly hurts. Like bumping a bruise you’d almost forgotten about against the edge of a table.

Except, like. A fuckton more than that, because it’s more like remembering that somebody put a gaping hole in your chest and you’d somehow managed to ignore it for a while.

David doesn’t say anything to Les, just turns around and walks back into his bedroom.

He takes the shirt off, balls it up, and throws it at his closet door.

He pulls his knees to his now bare chest and tries really hard not to cry, because it would be so goddamn stupid to cry over that fucking shirt now, _now_ of all times four years after the fact –

But, like. David misses Benny so fucking much and it’s all his own fault that they aren’t speaking, because David didn’t _have_ to cut him off except that he couldn’t face the reminder of what things used to be like, and now it’s been four years and it’s too late to fix it, it’s too late to fix any of it.

He can’t even think of Leah’s mom by name anymore, not as Leah’s mom, because that hurts too much, and he’s finally mostly gotten over it anyway. Getting back in touch with Benny – even if Benny would forgive him, which he probably wouldn’t and David wouldn’t deserve – would just reopen that wound, and he knows it.

Still, he can’t get rid of the shirt. He just keeps wearing it and every once in a while the aching loss of his best friend hits him like a goddamn freight train, but that’s life sometimes.

It’s not the only reminder David has of the people he’s – not lost, because that makes it seem like it was out of his control, but at the same times some days he _feels_ so lost, feels like there wasn’t any other fucking choice – missing. But it’s the one that comes to hand most often.

He’s still got that photo _she_ took the day Leah was born on his bedside table. That picture of him holding her, looking down at his little baby girl like she hung the stars, so _blindingly_ , incredibly happy. It’s easy to let himself forget who took it.

He’s still got the watch that Bill gave him for his birthday junior year (could that really have only been a month before they found out Leah was coming?) with a pat on the shoulder and a snarky comment about finally making it to class on time for once. He wears it more now than he did in college, but that’s still almost never. It’s easy to let himself forget who gave it to him.

He’s still got the notebook from Dynamics with six straight pages of notes in Darcy’s cramped, frantic handwriting, from that time that David got sick and Darcy took doubles of all his notes until he was well enough to drag himself to class again. It’s easy to let himself ignore the change in writing when he flips back through his college notes.

This stupid shirt isn’t even the only trace of Benny left in David’s life, but it’s the only one he can’t really ignore or push away.

It’s still right there, he just keeps fucking picking it up and wearing it and –

There’s a tap on the door.

“David?” Les says tentatively, pushing the door open. “Are you okay?”

David scrubs a hand across his eyes, even though he hasn’t actually been crying. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You don’t exactly look fine,” Les says.

“I’m _fine_ ,” David repeats. He stands up, grabbing another shirt at random out of his drawer and putting it on. “I’ve got to get Leah ready for class.”

He can’t afford to focus on where people are missing from his life. The people who are still in it need him too much.

\--

Ben does a really good job of not thinking about David much. He’s got too much else on his mind to let himself fall down the _is David okay_ rabbit hole, which is a rabbit hole he’s fallen down more times than he can count.

Still, sometimes –

“Hey, Ben?” Fiona says, holding something up. “No judgement or anything, but, like. Why do you have a box of baby toys in your closet?”

His eyes lock on the toy she’s holding.

It’s a butterfly, and Ben knows without her moving it or manipulating it at all that it has a bell in its head, that its wings make a crinkling noise when you move them.

It was Leah’s favorite.

Ben feels an awful lot like he can’t breathe.

“Oh, I – they’re –“ he chokes out. He drops heavily onto the bed, pulling his knee up to his chest. “They’re my niece’s.”

“You’re an only child,” Fiona says slowly.

“I don’t know what else to call her,” says Ben. “My best friend’s daughter. She was born when we were in college, I –“

“Did something happen to her?” says Fiona, so softly Ben almost doesn’t hear it.

“No,” says Ben, “no, nothing like that. Her dad is – he’s the – the friend who left.”

“Oh,” says Fiona, “ _oh,_ Ben.”

“Yeah,” Ben replies, just a breath.

He was supposed to get to watch Leah grow up, supposed to tease David when he inevitably cried on her first day of school, supposed to be a part of their lives.

He’s usually good – great, even – at pushing all of that aside. He doesn’t spare a thought for Kate unless Bill or Darcy mentions her, he doesn’t worry about Leah or David unless –

Well, there are more than a handful of reasons he does that, but he can usually keep it under control.

The thing about the baby toys is that Ben doesn’t need to keep them. Even if he called David up tomorrow and David, by some miracle, answered, Leah wouldn’t need or want these toys anymore – it’s been _years_. She’s not an infant anymore. She’ll be five years old this February. _Five_.

God, he’s missed so much.

_God_ , he _misses them_ so much.

It’s this huge, gaping hole in his life that he can’t help but feel sometimes, no matter how hard he tries.

He knows Bill and Darcy feel it too, even though the three of them don’t talk much about it. When they do, it’s nearly always because one of them has hit this wall again.

That’s the thing. Ben doesn’t need to keep the baby toys or the books or the touristy t-shirt that David bought for him when they went to the Statue of Liberty together in their freshman year.

But he keeps them anyway, because getting rid of them – getting rid of them would feel an awful lot like losing David and Leah all over again.

“Ben, are you alright?” Fiona asks, cutting through Ben’s drifting thoughts.

Ben blinks hard, hoping to clear the prickling feeling in his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m okay.”

After all, what choice does he have?


End file.
